UROS and The Floating Island

The Uros community lives about 8 kilometres from the Peruvian city of Puno in Peru. They are a community of 2,629 people, who live in a group of 45 islands made of woven Totora reed. The Uros civilization is 4500 years old. They used to be excellent farmers on the mainland, growing over 830 varieties of potatoes alone. When the Inca’s empire began to grow they absorbed many communities into the empire. Incas imposed the Quechua language on everyone but the Uros resisted and started to escape. They built houses on boats and began living in lake Titicaca. It was only fifty years ago, that they started to make reed platforms or islands.

The Uros used to speak the Uro language but with frequent intermarriages with the Aymara people, they adopted the Aymara language and lost the Uros language about 500 years ago. “In this community, women are the boss. So if you marry an Aymara woman, the family will adopt the Aymara language.” When the Spanish conquered the region, they forced Catholicism on everyone including the Uros.

There are two sacred places in Peru; the sacred valley and the sacred lake of Titicaca. The word Titicaca means “Puma(Titi) Rock(caca)”. According to the Andean people, there are two prime locations of energies on the planet; Himalaya that emits masculine energy and the lake Titicaca that is the feminine energy. They believe that the Himalaya and Titicaca are antipodal points on earth, which means that they are exactly on the opposite side of the earth. Lake Titicaca is also the origin of the Inca civilisation. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit the Lake to absorb its energy.

The main mode of making a living on the floating islands is fishing, building boats and selling handicrafts. Traditionally the rooms at the floating islands used to look like this. But they didn't have much space inside.

Life is tough on the island. People living here expect to sell handicrafts. That’s how they make a living but sometimes they are not able to sell enough and have to leave the island to find work outside. People, who leave, often don’t come back to the island. The population on the island has been more or less the same in the past few years.

Uros use medicinal plants for healing. They believe that the use of natural medicines help the body adapt and fight disease, while allopathic medicines weaken the immune system and have many side effects. However, 100% of the children are vaccinated, as a result of compulsion by the government in the past few years.